Salmon and trout stocks in rivers ‘almost gone’

By Claire O’Sullivan

Monday, February 13, 2012

Salmon and trout stocks in West Cork rivers "are almost gone" due to fish farming around Bantry Bay, according to a former National Parks and Wildlife Services manager.

Retired NPWS divisional manager Paddy O’Sullivan, a native of the area, was one of up to 100 people attending a meeting in Adrigole on Saturday night, aimed at halting plans by Marine Harvest to build a 12 to 14- cage organic salmon farm in the bay

Out of 30 contributions to the meeting, two were in favour of the €5.5m aquaculture project at Shot Head. Among those voicing concerns were fishermen, anglers, residents, scientists, and holiday home-owners who had travelled from New York and London.

A Bord Iascaigh Mhara representative was in attendance at the request of Marine Harvest.

A petition has been organised, calling for the Department of the Marine to hold a meeting in the area.

Mr O’Sullivan said the area’s once bountiful native salmon, sea trout and spring stocks are "almost gone completely" due to sea lice from the farms attacking salmon smolt (baby salmon) swimming out to sea.

Freshwater pearl mussels, a protected species, are "not breeding in West Cork rivers due to the lack of fish in the water," he claimed.

"Those rivers fed us when we were growing up. They are a vital part of our environment and heritage. We have to ask ourselves if this project is sustainable or will it damage the natural environment, the sea and rivers.

"Do we want to wipe out all the native fish stocks for a bit of foreign investment?"

Marine Harvest technical manager Catherine McManus has said the company "has the highest regard for the local environment and community" and is committed to developing the new farm in line with best environmental practice.

Read more: http://www.examiner.ie/ireland/salmon-and-trout-stocks-in-rivers-almost-gone-183702.html#ixzz1mN5gnPef

Extinction fears as salmon disappear

t.cork@bepp.co.uk


Atlantic salmon that travel thousands of miles to swim up a West river could become extinct there within three years, environmentalists have warned.

The Wiltshire Avon, which drains most of south Wiltshire through Salisbury and on through Dorset, is one of the most important rivers for salmon in England, but a combination of milder climate and a loss of suitable breeding grounds has badly affected the numbers.

The Wiltshire Wildlife Trust said the number swimming back up the Avon has halved in the past five years, and there could be no salmon left in the river within three years.

The trust is now embarking on a new survey to discover what the problem is, and what can be done to help the epic swimmers.

The salmon hatch from eggs in the upper reaches of the Avon, often as much as 40 miles from the sea, in shallow gravelly stretches of the river and its tributaries like the Nadder, Wylye, Bourne and Ebble, which all meet at Salisbury.

Once a year old, the salmon then swim out to sea and spend their lives thousands of miles away in the north Atlantic, off the coast of West Greenland. There they live for years, before returning for a final journey back across the Atlantic, up the English Channel and into the mouth of the Avon in Dorset. They then have to find the exact tributary where they were born to spawn.

But Wiltshire Wildlife Trust director Gary Mantle said that surveys of the numbers accessing the mouth of the Avon at Christchurch, near Bournemouth, show that numbers have halved in just five years. Tests on stretches of the Wylye tributary which the wildlife trust owns and manages have also shown that the temperature of the water and other habitat information has changed and appears to be badly affecting the Atlantic salmon.

Oxygen levels, and the pH level of the water has changed, and the river appears to be a less salmon-friendly environment.

The trust is actively restoring sections of the river to create more gravelly shallows that the salmon prefer.

"We want to get into the river and clean the gravel so we provide a much better spawning area for the fish," said Dr Mantle.

"It's a range of activities that we can do and we need to make sure we conserve the fish so that the few that remain are protected as well," he added.

"In the next three years, salmon could be extinct from the river," he warned.

Salmon numbers took a nose dive in recent decades as the river quality was damaged by pollution caused by agriculture. Dredging the river to aid flood defences also damaged habitats, and extraction by water companies created a less healthy environment.

http://www.christchurchpeople.co.uk/Extinction-fears-salmon-disappear/story-14279200-detail/story.html

Fast-Evolving Fish Struggle to Spawn in Wild

Salmon born in captivity become domesticated in as little as one generation, a new study finds, explaining why hatchery-born fish don't do as well as wild-born ones in Oregon rivers.

Researchers created an enormous fish family tree using genetic samples from 12,700 steelhead trout (which are in the same family as salmon) returning from the sea to Oregon's Hood River to spawn. This fishy pedigree revealed the fish that spawned well in hatcheries had offspring that spawned poorly in the wild.

"They're adapting to captivity in a single generation," study scientist Mark Christie, a postdoctoral researcher at Oregon State University, told LiveScience. In other words, the fish rapidly became domesticated, Christie and his colleagues reported yesterday (Dec. 19) in the journal Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences.

"It's similar to the process by which wolves were transformed into dogs," Christie said. "That's all that's occurring here, except it's occurring at a really rapid time scale."


Read more here ...

Virus hitting salmon in British Columbia?

VANCOUVER, British Columbia, Nov. 5 (UPI) -- A virus that has hit fish farms hard in eastern Canada, Norway and Chile may be present in wild salmon that spawn in British Columbia, a biologist says.

Bruce Cohen, a justice on the provincial supreme court, has scheduled a two-day special hearing on evidence that the infectious salmon anemia virus could have hit the region, Postmedia News reported. Cohen is leading an inquiry into the sharp drop in numbers of Fraser River salmon.

Alexandra Morton, a biologist who submitted samples of coho and sockeye salmon for testing, blames open-water salmon farms. She said ISA could have arrived in British Columbia with imported salmon eggs.

"It's a complete wild card. We just don't know and that's what has everyone so afraid," she said.

The number of salmon returning to the Fraser to spawn in 2009 dropped to about 1 million, when 10 million had been expected, but bounced back in 2010. The fish-farming industry says 2009 was an anomaly caused by unusual conditions in Queen Charlotte Sound in 2007 when the salmon went to sea.

Wild salmon managers argue the 2009 catastrophe followed years of lower numbers and 2010 was the anomaly.

Read more: http://www.upi.com/Science_News/2011/11/05/Virus-hitting-salmon-in-British-Columbia/UPI-91431320525956/#ixzz1cvulEf47

Summit hears that wild salmon are dying in “alarming numbers,”

A SALMON summit in La Rochelle this week has seen scientists confirming that wild Atlantic salmon are dying at sea in alarming numbers, it emerged today.

Southern stocks, including some in North America and Europe, are threatened with extinction, the summit also heard.

The summit, a major international symposium co-convened by the North Atlantic Salmon Conservation Organisation (NASCO) and the International Council for the Exploration of the Sea (www.ices.dk), and entitled 'Salmon at Sea: Scientific Advances and their Implications for Management,' was held at L'Aquarium, La Rochelle, from October 11-13.

As many as 130 scientists and managers involved in research and management of salmon in the North Atlantic, North Pacific and Baltic Sea participated.

The Atlantic salmon is seen as a unique iconic species and an indicator of healthy environments from pristine upland streams to vast oceanic feeding grounds in the North Atlantic.

And utilising new technologies, scientists are starting to unravel the mysteries of salmon in the ocean and providing managers with management options to save this fish.

But Dr Malcolm Windsor, Secretary of NASCO warned: “Unless we adopt conservation measures identified during the summit there is a real risk that Southern stocks will become extinct by 2040.”

Dr Windsor said, the goal of the SALSEA Programme, a unique collaboration between international scientists, is to increase understanding of how salmon use the ocean, where they go, how they utilise currents and the oceans, food resources and what factors influence their migration and distribution at sea.

This Programme used innovative new technologies, including genetic fingerprinting, to map the domain of salmon and identify factors affecting its survival. This has revealed, for instance, that some of the food chain of salmon is moving further North, seemingly in response to a warming ocean.

And because we now know where salmon are at sea, management measures could be implemented to limit impacts on them, such as fisheries for other species.

A clear message to managers in this challenging global environment was to ensure the maximum number of healthy wild salmon go to sea from their rivers.

Keeping salmon populations abundant involved addressing impact factors in freshwater, estuarine and coastal waters. These include degraded freshwater habitat, barriers to migration, over-exploitation and salmon farming.

http://www.fishnewseu.com/latest-news/world/6846-summit-hears-that-wild-salmon-are-dying-in-alarming-numbers.html

Salmon and Other Fish Predators Rely On 'No Guts, No Glory' Survival Tactic

ScienceDaily (Sep. 15, 2011) — The phrase "no guts, no glory" doesn't just apply to athletes who are striving to excel. Salmon and other fish predators take the adage literally, by having up to three times the "gut" capacity they need on a daily basis just so they can "glory" when prey is abundant, University of Washington researchers have discovered.

It's a previously unrecognized survival tactic that might apply to other top predators, such as wolves, lions and bears, according to Jonathan Armstrong, a UW doctoral student in aquatic and fishery sciences and lead author of a letter published recently in the journal Nature.

"The predatory fish we examined have the guts to consume two- to three-times the amount of food that they regularly encounter. This much excess capacity suggests predator-prey encounters are far patchier -- or random -- than assumed in biology and that binge-feeding enables predators to survive despite regular periods of famine," Armstrong said. Co-author on the paper is Daniel Schindler, UW professor of aquatic and fishery sciences.

"Guts are really expensive organs in terms of metabolism," Armstrong said. For instance, maintaining a gut can require 30 to 40 percent of the blood pumped by an animal's heart.

Some animals have some capacity to grow or shrink their guts in response to changing conditions. For example, the digestive organs of birds that are about to migrate expand so they can eat more and fatten up. This is followed by a period when their guts atrophy and then, freed of the baggage of heavy guts, the birds take off.

That and results from lab studies led some scientists to assume that predators eliminate excess digestive capacity to save energy in times of famine. But the UW findings show that many fish species maintain a huge gut, which enables them to capitalize on unpredictable pulses of food.

"For predator fish, the world is a slot machine -- sometimes they stumble upon small meals and other times they hit the jackpot. It's just not as predictable as some have thought," Armstrong said.

"Unlike some other animals, fish can't just hoard their food behind a rock in the stream and eat it later. They need to binge during the good times so that they can grow and build energy reserves to survive the bad times."

Armstrong and Schindler hope that their results can help with ecological models used in conservation and management.

"Ecosystem models typically assume relatively constant interactions between predator and prey but our results suggest such interactions are extremely patchy. We're excited to see if including this ecological realism might improve the predictions of these models."

The work was funded by the UW School of Aquatic and Fishery Sciences, National Science Foundation and the Gordon and Betty Moore Foundation.
http://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2011/09/110915141237.htm

Salmon can sniff out predators

Salmon know when their most common predator is around, because they can tell that it's eaten salmon before, new research shows. Young fish can do this too, even if they've never encountered that particular predator before.

Researchers from the University of Swansea put young Atlantic salmon in tanks of water, some sections of which were scented with diluted otter faeces. They found the fish tended to avoid the scented water – provided the otter in question had previously eaten salmon.

'It's the predator's diet – not just its own smell – that's alerting the salmon,' explains Dr Laura Roberts from the University of Swansea, co-author of the report published in Animal Behaviour.

Otters are common predators of salmon so it's clearly useful to the fish to be able to sniff them out.
The smell acts as an early-warning system for the fish, even when they can't see the predator. It lets them work out the potential risk of being eaten and balance predator avoidance with other vital activities like foraging and reproducing.

Previous studies have shown that some fish can detect the presence of other predatory fish, but this is the first research to show the mechanism works for mammal predators too.

'We wanted to test whether the salmon were able to recognise the otter as a threat using just chemical cues, and also to see whether they were detecting the smell of the predator's itself or of its diet,' says Roberts.

The researchers tested individual fish in a 'Y-maze chamber' – essentially a trough with two arms and a holding tank at one end. This arrangement meant different scents could be released into the arms of the tank and kept separate, while allowing the salmon to swim into whichever arm it chose.

In each test, differently scented water was introduced to each arm of the tank: either unscented, scented with the faeces of an otter that hadn't eaten salmon, or scented with faeces of an otter that had eaten salmon.

The researchers measured the salmons' avoidance behaviour by seeing how much time they spent in different parts of the tank. The fish seemed unperturbed by water scented with faeces from the non-salmon eating otter. But when the water was scented by the salmon eater's faeces the fish steered clear, avoiding that arm of the tank around 85 per cent of the time.

The researchers monitored other behaviours associated with predator avoidance, and these also varied depending on the scent. For example, more of the fish rested motionless on the bottom of the tank (known as 'freezing') in the presence of the salmon-diet scent. Fish exposed to this scent also breathed more quickly – a stress response which can be a reaction to the presence of a predator.

This suggests the fish aren't reacting simply to the otter's presence; they are reacting to the smell of an otter that has proved to be a predator by eating other salmon. And this ability gives them a head start in a world where many different creatures are out to eat them.

'The salmon's ability to sense these chemicals helps them react to a wide range of predators without the need to learn about each individual species,' says Roberts.


by Adele Rackley
http://planetearth.nerc.ac.uk/news/story.aspx?id=1061

Healthy Thames 'key for return of salmon'

Salmon in the Thames are more likely to be fish that have "strayed" from nearby rivers rather than a result of a multi-million pound restocking effort.

Researchers collected genetic data from returning fish, which suggested that habitat restoration was more effective than species re-introductions.

Lessons from this study, the team said, could be applied to rivers that the fish had disappeared from.

The findings will be published in the journal Bological Conservation.

"Traditionally, people - such as river owners and anglers - have wanted big fish swimming up their rivers," explained co-author Jamie Stevens from the University of Exeter.

"The easiest option has been to just restock those rivers with exogenous fish (from outside the river system).

"In the southern parts of Britain, the thing would have been to take fish from some of the big Scottish rivers, bring them down and dump them in the rivers rather than improving the riparian [river] habitat," he told BBC News.

'Local adaptations'
Dr Stevens and his team, in a previous paper, carried out a study of Atlantic salmon populations (Salmo salar) in northern Spain that suggested that stable populations developed genetic profiles that become definitive to a particular river system.

Some of the unique characteristics included local adaptation to the river system's water chemistry, temperature and run-time from sea to spawning ground.

"Almost certainly, most fish come with a vast amount of local adaptations which we really are only beginning to scratch the surface," he suggested.

"So as soon as you dump a big fish in a river than is not its native one, it is just not as fit."

In their paper, the team said evidence from Pacific restocking programmes showed that once restocking projects had run their course, the numbers dropped off quite quickly and the ones that did remain had "strayed" from nearby rivers. They were not fish that had be introduced from distant hatcheries.

"In a sense, this is what we believe we are seeing in the Thames study," Dr Stevens observed.

"Those fish that were put in the river were Scottish and Irish hatchery fish, and they were probably not suitable for an English chalk stream environment."

Straying from home
Historically, England's longest river had a "significant" salmon population, the researchers wrote.

"It is mentioned as far back as the Magna Carta (1215), and a substantial fishery existed on the river until the early 19th Century."

But, they added: "The industrial revolution and urbanisation of London led to increased levels of pollution in the river and the last record of a Thames salmon was made in 1833."

Since the late 1970s, there have been a number of attempts to re-introduce the species at a considerable cost. A 2003 paper estimated that £3m had been spent on efforts to establish a population in the Thames.

"Perhaps our paper shows that if your yardstick for showing recovery is the presence of Atlantic salmon then the best way to ensure that is to make sure that you get the environment right and just not dumping in a lot of exogenous fish," Dr Stevens suggested.

He explained that the presence of salmon in a river was important because the fish was an "indicator species".

"If you have large, healthy fish running to sea, and then you have a proportion of those coming back as even larger healthy adults that are ready to spawn and mate, you know that things are working well within that river.

"We then know that we have good gravels, good oxygenation within the water, a good range of [food sources], clean water and a good river flow.

"Everything within the system's pyramid has to be right in order for the apex predator to be present."

When asked whether the findings suggested that conservation funds and efforts would be better invested in habitat restoration than focusing on a single species, he said it was probably true when it came to salmon habitats.

"It is about getting the river system right then the fish will do the rest, really," he said.

"Salmon are good at homing, but the good news is that they are not perfect and a percentage will stray.

"That straying means that the species as a whole has the opportunity to explore new avenues when they become available."
By Mark Kinver Environment reporter, BBC News
http://www.bbc.co.uk/nature/14719203

Spelman pledges £110m to revive unhealthy waterways

13 April 2011

Otters and salmon will benefit from a £110m boost in spending on England's lakes, rivers and streams, the government has said.

Environment Secretary Caroline Spelman said the funds would revive "lifeless" bodies of water, allowing wildlife to flourish by tackling invasive weeds.

She also said that ministers wanted people to become more involved in caring for local waterways and streams.

Ralph Underhill, of campaign group Our Rivers, welcomed the announcement.

£92m will be provided over the next four years to combat non-native invasive weeds and clear up pollution.

Redundant dams, weirs and landings in England will also be removed.

The funding will be shared between the Environment Agency, Natural England and charities such as the Association of Rivers Trust.

This boost is earmarked for England alone because funding for waterways is devolved in Scotland, Wales and Northern Ireland.

An additional £18m will be provided this year to help farmers protect water courses near agricultural land, the government added.

Grass roots

Announcing the move, Mrs Spelman said: "The health of our rivers has come along in leaps and bounds, but we still see nasty invasive weeds and lifeless waters blight blue spaces in cities and across our countryside.

"With this funding, we'll help all our waterways and streams thrive by tackling problems that until now have been sitting in the 'too-hard' basket.

"Our new grass-roots approach to boosting healthier waterways and flourishing wildlife has local experience and knowledge at its heart."

Mr Underhill warned that the funding would not "solve all the problems overnight".

But he hailed the announcement as "fantastic news for our rivers and the wildlife they support".

"Rivers are a national asset and in the current financial climate it is great to see a new investment being made in their future," he added.

Conservation charity WWF-UK said it was delighted by the government's extra funding.

Tom Le Quesne, freshwater policy manager, said: "We recently withdrew legal action against the government which was originally taken because the previous government's 2009 plans for implementation of the Water Framework Directive did not deliver for rivers.

"We hope this funding shows the beginning of a long-term drive to improve the quality of our rivers and helping wildlife thrive."

http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/science-environment-13053394
(Via Dawn Holloway)

Klamath Chinook Salmon Groups Seek Endangered Species Act Protection

JEFF BARNARD 01/27/11 02:37 PM

GRANTS PASS, Ore. — Conservation groups are seeking Endangered Species Act protection for chinook salmon in the Klamath River running from Southern Oregon across Northern California.

The petition filed Thursday with the NOAA Fisheries Service says spring chinook that once were the most prized and numerous of the salmon returning each year to the Klamath are down to between 300 and 3,000 that survive to spawn each year.

Fall chinook are doing better.

If granted, protection would further complicate the tough decisions on sharing scarce water between fish and farms in the Klamath Basin, where coho salmon and two species of suckers already are protected.

The proposal comes as the U.S. Department of Interior studies whether to go through with a landmark agreement to remove four hydroelectric dams on the river to help salmon.

http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2011/01/29/klamath-chinook-salmon-gr_n_815301.html

Klamath Chinook Salmon Groups Seek Endangered Species Act Protection

JEFF BARNARD 01/27/11 02:37 PM

GRANTS PASS, Ore. — Conservation groups are seeking Endangered Species Act protection for chinook salmon in the Klamath River running from Southern Oregon across Northern California.

The petition filed Thursday with the NOAA Fisheries Service says spring chinook that once were the most prized and numerous of the salmon returning each year to the Klamath are down to between 300 and 3,000 that survive to spawn each year.

Fall chinook are doing better.

If granted, protection would further complicate the tough decisions on sharing scarce water between fish and farms in the Klamath Basin, where coho salmon and two species of suckers already are protected.

The proposal comes as the U.S. Department of Interior studies whether to go through with a landmark agreement to remove four hydroelectric dams on the river to help salmon.

http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2011/01/29/klamath-chinook-salmon-gr_n_815301.html

Japanese salmon declared extinct 70 years ago found swimming in lake

By Danielle Demetriou


The freshwater salmon known as black kokanee once thrived in the northerly Akita region of Japan but was classified as extinct by the government in 1940.

However, a team of scientists led by professor Tetsuji Nakabo of Kyoto University has examined nine fish in Lake Saiko, Yamanashi Prefecture, and concluded they directly match the characteristics of the "extinct" salmon.

If confirmed, this would mark the first occasion that a Japanese fish species classified as extinct has been found to be alive, according to the Environment Ministry which is investigating the claims with a view to updating its classification.

The fish, also known as "kunimasu" in Japanese, once lived only in its native Lake Tazawa, Akita Prefecture, and was declared extinct in 1940 following an inflow of acidic water due to a hydroelectric project.

However, Professor Nakabo uncovered records of how 100,000 eggs of the salmon had been transported to other freshwater locations across Japan five years before it was classified as extinct.

Among the locations was Lake Saiko, around 310 miles south of its native waters, where the scientists discovered enough of the formerly believed extinct fish to sustain its future survival.

"I was really surprised," said Professor Nakabo. "This is a very interesting fish it's a treasure. We have to protect it and not let it disappear again."

Japanese salmon declared extinct 70 years ago found swimming in lake

By Danielle Demetriou


The freshwater salmon known as black kokanee once thrived in the northerly Akita region of Japan but was classified as extinct by the government in 1940.

However, a team of scientists led by professor Tetsuji Nakabo of Kyoto University has examined nine fish in Lake Saiko, Yamanashi Prefecture, and concluded they directly match the characteristics of the "extinct" salmon.

If confirmed, this would mark the first occasion that a Japanese fish species classified as extinct has been found to be alive, according to the Environment Ministry which is investigating the claims with a view to updating its classification.

The fish, also known as "kunimasu" in Japanese, once lived only in its native Lake Tazawa, Akita Prefecture, and was declared extinct in 1940 following an inflow of acidic water due to a hydroelectric project.

However, Professor Nakabo uncovered records of how 100,000 eggs of the salmon had been transported to other freshwater locations across Japan five years before it was classified as extinct.

Among the locations was Lake Saiko, around 310 miles south of its native waters, where the scientists discovered enough of the formerly believed extinct fish to sustain its future survival.

"I was really surprised," said Professor Nakabo. "This is a very interesting fish it's a treasure. We have to protect it and not let it disappear again."

The Salmon That Grew & Grew

30-Sep-2010


Sometimes science is wrong, and one example of this are Frankenfish: In order to grow bigger salmon that can feed more people, a genetically-modified Atlantic salmon has been created that grows twice as fast as wild ones. Its genes have been artificially augmented with DNA taken from two other fish in order to give it more growth hormone. 

Researcher Craig Altier says, "The fisheries of the world are being rapidly depleted and so advances in aquaculture will be needed to meet the growing demand for protein. Genetically engineered animals might help to feed the world, but they must first meet the most stringent requirements for human and environmental safety.

"Is the introduced growth hormone gene safe for the fish itself? The studies designed to determine this were flawed, and so we don't know yet whether this is true. The burden of proof here is on the producer of this fish, Aquabounty, to perform further research to establish safety for the fish.

"Is the fish safe for human consumption? Exhaustive analysis by the FDA showed no difference from conventional salmon. The growth hormone itself presents no specific risk, as we consume growth hormone in all meats we eat (but SHOULD we?) The FDA also found no increase in allergens, which is important, as fish is already a food that causes allergic reactions in many people.

"We advised the FDA on the possible environmental impacts of this fish. Containment of the fish is essential, as the release of this fast-growing animal could have devastating effects on native fish populations. We need to treat these fish as we would a potentially dangerous medicine or pharmaceutical, and apply all of the same security measures to its production and transport."


http://www.unknowncountry.com/news/?id=8606

The Salmon That Grew & Grew

30-Sep-2010


Sometimes science is wrong, and one example of this are Frankenfish: In order to grow bigger salmon that can feed more people, a genetically-modified Atlantic salmon has been created that grows twice as fast as wild ones. Its genes have been artificially augmented with DNA taken from two other fish in order to give it more growth hormone. 

Researcher Craig Altier says, "The fisheries of the world are being rapidly depleted and so advances in aquaculture will be needed to meet the growing demand for protein. Genetically engineered animals might help to feed the world, but they must first meet the most stringent requirements for human and environmental safety.

"Is the introduced growth hormone gene safe for the fish itself? The studies designed to determine this were flawed, and so we don't know yet whether this is true. The burden of proof here is on the producer of this fish, Aquabounty, to perform further research to establish safety for the fish.

"Is the fish safe for human consumption? Exhaustive analysis by the FDA showed no difference from conventional salmon. The growth hormone itself presents no specific risk, as we consume growth hormone in all meats we eat (but SHOULD we?) The FDA also found no increase in allergens, which is important, as fish is already a food that causes allergic reactions in many people.

"We advised the FDA on the possible environmental impacts of this fish. Containment of the fish is essential, as the release of this fast-growing animal could have devastating effects on native fish populations. We need to treat these fish as we would a potentially dangerous medicine or pharmaceutical, and apply all of the same security measures to its production and transport."


http://www.unknowncountry.com/news/?id=8606

Officials hope dams' removal will bring the big salmon back

WASHINGTON — They were known as June Hogs — 100-pound salmon that, when stood on end, were taller than a man.

Up until a century ago, they returned annually to the Elwha River on Washington state's Olympic Peninsula in runs so huge that homesteaders reported that the river turned into a wiggling mass from bank to bank. One count placed their number at 392,000.

Then, two dams were built across the river, .and the spawning grounds were blocked, giving the fish less than five miles of river to breed. Today fewer than 3,000 fish return to the Elwha.

That's about to change.

In what would be the largest dam removal project ever in the United States, the federal government last week requested bids to demolish the two structures _ the 105-foot Elwha Dam, finished in 1913, and the Glines Canyon Dam, twice as tall as the Elwha Dam, finished in 1927.

The dams won't be blown up, but dismantled over roughly three years so the 19 million cubic yards of silt, gravel and rock behind them can be flushed downstream gradually.

The project will cost more than $300 million. The cost of removing the dams _ $60 million to $70 million _ is only a portion of the price tag.

Once the dams are down, it may take 10 years to re-establish the runs, but officials are determined that the fish will return. Some will be flown by helicopter to the upper reaches of the Elwha watershed. To supplement the meager number of native fish, others will be raised in a nearby hatchery and added to the runs. Eventually, the runs are expected to become wild.

Scientists say if the salmon runs can't be restored on the Elwha, they can't be restored anywhere.

More than 85 percent of the river's salmon habitat is in the Olympic National Park, remote back country even now barely touched by man.

"I have no doubt this will work," said Brian Winter, the Elwha Project manager for the National Park Service.

Winter, a fisheries biologist who's been working on restoring the Elwha runs since 1985, said the river is a living laboratory that has been studied for decades.

"This isn't so much about taking out the dams, it's about seeing the first salmon headed up stream," he said.

Others are calling it the "last dam summer" as demolition work is expected to begin next year.

"All eyes, including internationally, are on it to see how a river comes back to life," said Amy Kober of American Rivers. "The lessons we learn on the Elwha will apply to others rivers around the nation."

To the Lower Elwha Klallam Tribe, the removal of the dams is about more than salmon. When the dams were built, the reservoirs that grew behind them flooded the tribe's only inland village and the "tribal creation site," where according to legend the tribe was created.

"We just have word of mouth about where they are," said Robert Elofson, the tribe's director of Elwha River restoration. "It's been 100 years."

The dam removal project began in 1992 when Congress approved the Elwha River Restoration Act.

The privately owned dams provided electricity that helped power the economy of the Olympic Peninsula, including the Bremerton Naval Shipyard and nearby paper mills.

There were several attempts to strip funding over the years, but they failed. Former U.S. Sen. Slade Gorton, R-Wash., unsuccessfully sought to link the Elwha project to a promise that four dams on the lower Snake River would never be breached to aid salmon runs in the Columbia River basin.

Before seeking bids to remove the dams, the Interior Department, which includes the National Park Service, spent $24.5 million on a water treatment plant for the city of Port Angeles and $69.6 million for other water facilities. Port Angeles takes it water from the Elwha and there were concerns the silt released by the removal of the dams could affect water quality.

The Interior Department also paid $16.4 million to construct a new tribal fish hatchery. Work is also underway on some levy modifications.

Congress has been providing roughly $20 million in funding annually and nearly $55 million in economic stimulus money was also appropriated.

Rep. Norm Dicks, D-Wash., whose congressional district includes the Elwha, has championed the project from the beginning.

"There's no question we can do this," Dicks said of restoring the runs.

Dicks is an avid fisherman. In his congressional office is a mounted 54-pound salmon he caught in Alaska. He laughs when asked about catching a 100-pound salmon.

No one is betting those giants will return to the Elwha.

But to those who have been working on the restoration project for 18 or more years, the end may be in sight.

"It's amazing we are so close," said Kober.

Read more: http://www.mcclatchydc.com/2010/04/11/91929/officials-hope-dams-removal-will.html#ixzz0kpibGoCb


By Les Blumenthal

McClatchy Newspapers
http://www.mcclatchydc.com/2010/04/11/91929/officials-hope-dams-removal-will.html

Deadly Parasite Could Endanger Salmon And Trout Populations In U.K.

Stocks of the UK’s Atlantic salmon along with varieties of domestic brown trout could be under threat from a deadly parasite according to research led by Bournemouth University (BU) and published in the International Journal of Parasitology.

Lead author of the paper Dr Rodolphe Gozlan believes the disease is a rosette agent or parasite first identified in the UK in 2005. The agent - Sphaerothecum destruens – was originally found in the US and is closely associated with ‘invasive’ fish species including topmouth gudgeon and could prove deadly to native salmonids (Atlantic salmon, brown trout).

Young brown trout

Atlantic salmon

Dr Gozlan and his colleagues from the University of California-Davis, State University of New York, the UK’s Centre for Ecology and Hydrology and Cardiff University have found the first record of the new infective parasite rosette agent outside North America.

In his previous research (Nature, 2005), Dr Gozlan initially found that the parasite poses a severe threat to some freshwater fish species in Europe. The latest findings have serious implications in understanding the potential risk posed by the association in the UK of this disease, the rosette agent, with invasive fish species.


North American isolates of the rosette agent have been shown to cause both high morbidity and mortality in various salmonid species including Atlantic salmon, brown and rainbow trout. Analysis of the European strain indicates a degree of isolation between European and North American rosette agent populations.


“Unlike in the US, the occurrence of this agent in invasive fish presents a major risk of spread from wild invasive populations to sympatric populations of susceptible native fish,” said Dr Gozlan, an Associate Professor in Conservation Ecology within BU’s School of Conservation Sciences. “As such it represents a risk for fisheries and commercial aquaculture, as movement of fish for stocking purposes is common practice.”


Dr Gozlan and his colleagues say more work is required to determine the extent of the threat to UK and European fish diversity. They have already observed the rapid demise of the sunbleak (Leucaspius delineatus) in parts of Europe in the last forty years following the spread of a healthy carrier – the Asian topmouth gudgeon - the most invasive fish species in Europe. As a result, the sunbleak species is now on the European list of threatened freshwater fishes.
Scientists at Bournemouth University have so far found 26 populations of topmouth gudgeon across England and Wales in rivers, enclosed lakes and sites connected to the river network. Catchments at risk from invasion include the Kent, Yorkshire Ouse, Trent, Thames, Medway, Itchen, Test and Severn.


“The new parasite has also been shown to affect other UK freshwater fish such as bream, carp and roach so there is an urgent need to develop more sensitive detection tools of the rosette agent if responsible authorities want a chance to control its spread and limit future outbreaks,” concluded Dr. Gozlan.


http://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2009/06/090617155011.htm



Journal reference:
Rodolphe E. Gozlana, Christopher M. Whippsb, Demetra Andreouc and Kristen D. Arkushe. Identification of a rosette-like agent as Sphaerothecum destruens, a multi-host fish pathogenstar, open. International Journal of Parasitology